How Hybrid Cloud Technology Compares

If the predictions come true, 2017 will be a groundbreaking year for organizations to accelerate cloud adoption and enhancements. In the IT Trends Report 2016: The Hybrid IT Evolution, 92% of IT professionals surveyed confirmed that adopting cloud technologies was critical to their organization’s long-term success. Since so many businesses are weighing the pros and cons of various forms of cloud technology, now’s a great time to discuss what a hybrid cloud solution is and how it might benefit your organization.

What is a Hybrid Cloud?

As enterprises seek efficiencies to better serve customers, the focus on cloud computing will only intensify. IDC predicts, “more than 80% of enterprise IT organizations will commit to hybrid cloud architectures by 2017.”

A hybrid cloud uses an encrypted connection to allow data to flow between public and private clouds. Although an admittedly simplistic definition, a hybrid cloud solution gives the benefits of private and public clouds to organizations. Both clouds remain independent, but they share one or more touchpoints so data intermingles and more than one cloud may be accessed to perform a task. A hybrid cloud solution is not the same as a multi-cloud setup where different clouds are called upon to do separate tasks and the individual clouds are set up to take advantage of the unique benefits they provide for each task.

Benefits of a Hybrid Cloud

Organizations find that a hybrid cloud approach provides the power, scalability, and lower cost of a public cloud with the security of a private cloud. Some organizations transition to a hybrid cloud as an interim step as they migrate from on-site data storage and processing to 100% public cloud. Others choose to go the hybrid cloud route for the flexibility it provides to scale with the public cloud solution while maintaining integrity and security with the private component. In addition to flexibility to adapt to change, here are other benefits of a hybrid cloud solution:

  • Security: Some organizations have very sensitive data they need to safeguard with a private cloud, but can use the power of the public cloud for processing the data or less sensitive data sets.
  • Efficiency: A hybrid cloud allows you to contain costs and to preserve efficiencies by using your private cloud for critical tasks while offloading less important duties to the public cloud.
  • Performance: Some organizations and some apps need minimal latency in processing for certain tasks. A hybrid solution can help allocate functions more efficiently.
  • Stability: Protection from network outages is enhanced when you have public and private cloud solutions.

Setting Up a Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure

While there are many benefits to implementing a hybrid cloud infrastructure, your organization must ensure it has the proper time, resources, and staff to make the transition effectively or it could suffer undue expense. Here are a few elements that must be discussed and planned for when implementing a hybrid cloud infrastructure:

  • Integration: Every organization can create a fully customized hybrid solution; however, customization and integration does takes time and requires staff to be assigned to manage and test it.
  • Management: To ensure a successful implementation, workloads should be modeled to determine the amount of storage and processing resources your unique situation requires.
  • Workload: What is your organization’s workflow? Do you experience high demand all the time or spikes in your needs? Have you determined what is handled by a private cloud and what is best for the public cloud?
  • Data growth: Consider your future data needs as part of your initial needs assessment.

Proven Cloud Technology

There’s no doubt that although a hybrid cloud solution offers many benefits to your organization, you could invest in product that doesn’t address your organization’s needs adequately. To ensure success you need to rely on proven cloud technology and infrastructure solutions from an industry leader such as Hitachi Data Systems.

DSN Group designs, implements, and supports converged infrastructure solutions with the best available hardware and software to meet your organization’s needs. DSN Group uses a five step approach to deliver a consistent, reliable, and predictable converged infrastructure solutions. If you’re interested in getting the most out of your virtual, unified data center contact DSN Group at 888.445.2919 for more information.

What is stalling the implementation of a hybrid cloud solution in your organization? If you have deployed a hybrid cloud solution, what lessons were learned and what would you do differently?

 

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